The Xbox One's latest system patch is live and it brings remote game installation, 3D Blu-Ray support, notifications enhancements and updates to the console's activity feeds.
Larry Hryb, as known as by the gamertag "Major Nelson," detailed the latest Xbox One updates in a blog post shortly before the system patch went live. Hryb, director of programming for Xbox Live, said the latest batch of updates were a compilation of the features most requested through Xbox' user feedback site.
No longer will Xbox One players have to look in envy at their co-workers who primarily game on PC and use the Steam app to commission remote installations of games to their home computers.
Xbox One owners can now remotely initiate downloads on a coffee break at work, via Xbox Smartglass or Xbox.com, and have their games ready to play by the time work is over for the day -- Xbox Ones with automatic updates enabled will begin downloading the content as soon owners give the remote orders.
Microsoft's Xbox division gave a little loving care to the Xbox One's activity feed in an effort to increase the interaction between friends, according to Hryb.
"We'll add the ability to post text to your feed, and to "like" and comment on feed items," stated Hryb the day before the patch was rolled out. "You can share game clips and anything else in the feed with friends either publicly, to your activity feed, or privately, as an attachment to a message. You'll also be notified when anyone likes, comments on or shares your items. Each user will get a personal feed on their profile, so you can see what specific friends have been up to."
Like Steam, Xbox One's activity feed now shows how long ago a friend was online. It's helps users determine if a friend is taking a break from the console for a while and it may also serve as a minor annoyance to gamers who find out they missed gaming with some of their favorite players by just a few minutes -- get back on!
To help players avoid finding out they need to swap out a battery pack for a controller in the middle of a boss fight or the final scoring drive in a tight game, the latest update brought with it a low-battery notification to help gamers better manage battery life. On the topic of notifications, Xbox One players can now disable popups to prevent them from marring video recordings.
Rounding out the list of updates to the Xbox One, Microsoft has added 3D Blu-Ray support to the console. The 3D support comes roughly a month after rival Sony released it in an update for the PlayStation 4.
